Former AIPAC staffer Keith Weissman, indicted in 2005 under the Espionage Act alongside colleague
Steven J. Rosen and Defense Department employee Col. Lawrence Franklin, is
desperately worried. In a lengthy,
rambling monologue
delivered to independent reporter Robert Dreyfuss, Weissman breaks a
long silence to declare he’s “concerned that if a confrontation between
the United States, Israel, and Iran leads to war, it will be a
disaster—one that Weissman fears will be blamed on the American Jews.”
It is telling, but unsurprising, that Weissman—through
misrepresentations and false dichotomy—exhibits little concern for the
broader potential consequence of war. Fortunately, his tired arguments
are in a final lap toward oblivion.

AIPAC, in the business of advancing
Israeli government policies in the United States ever since its founder left the Israeli Ministry
of Foreign Affairs in 1951,
has long portrayed itself as the sole distillery of Jewish policy needs
to politicians eager to tap the Israel lobby’s seemingly limitless barrels
of campaign donations. But AIPAC’s brand has recently sprung a leak
as growing numbers of youthful,
creative, and noisy organizations
challenge its tired claims of representation and even legitimacy.
Weissman’s actual concern is that AIPAC and its creaky constellation of affiliates will be blamed if the United States is successfully goaded
or tripwired into an unnecessary war with Iran. Accountability
has always been anathema for an organization operating more like a foreign
intelligence agency than a tax-exempt social-welfare organization.

AIPAC has long brushed its footprints
away from trapping pits into which it has successfully lured American taxpayers.
The Los Angeles Times has lauded its “donor secrecy,” while
Fortune called AIPAC “calculatedly quiet.”
One anonymous AIPAC official even confided to The National Journal
that “there is no question that we exert a policy impact, but working
behind the scenes and taking care not to leave fingerprints, that impact
is not always traceable to us.” According to the interview:

[Support for regime change] was
the personal opinion of many people in AIPAC, but it never uttered the
words “regime change.” And I think my efforts were part of the reason
why they never did. … How would it look anyway?
This is what makes it so stupid! The American Jewish community choosing
the next government of Iran? Helping to change the next government
of Iran? How can that government have any legitimacy? It’s completely
ridiculous. And I think the arguments that I raised against it convinced
AIPAC, no matter what they personally thought, they realized that what
I was saying was right.

Weissman’s overblown claims that he was
a lone progressive hero fending off the Israel lobby’s push for regime
change from AIPAC’s Iran desk must be evaluated against the actual record.
Dreyfuss notes that Weissman was indicted under the Espionage Act over
AIPAC’s covert attempts to influence Iran policy, but he writes, “Perhaps
the full story of the Rosen-Weissman case, Franklin’s involvement, and
what role was played by AIPAC and by Israel will never be known.”
Fortunately for readers, enough is now publicly known to discount Weissman’s version, thanks to documents filed in Superior Court during a defamation suit last year.

According to court documents, Rosen
and Weissman were both on a key phone call passing U.S. government classified
information and spin to Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler
in 2004. Rosen colorfully told Kessler that based on that information Iran was undeniably engaged in “total war” against the United States. Though
AIPAC’s version of U.S. Iran assessments wasn’t true at the time, and
isn’t true now, AIPAC’s motive for advancing it was clear—to trigger
U.S. military operations against Iran by stirring up American outrage
through the establishment press. Weissman said nothing
to deter Kessler from propagating the false threat.

Then, as now, Rosen and Weissman’s
operational concern was that they not suffer any consequences for shoveling
tainted classified information—and that AIPAC not be implicated in
the deed. Rosen told Kessler (with Weissman still on the line)
that he was concerned about “not
getting into trouble” [.pdf], meaning, as court documents reveal, “Rosen and Weissman could
get in trouble because the information is classified.” Rosen
later reflected that FBI wiretaps of the “total war” phone
call to the Washington Post
made them look “very sinister” and “portrayed him as
a secret agent rather than a lobbyist.” It didn’t help that
Rosen later fled to meet with Israeli embassy officials after the FBI told him
to get a lawyer. The historical record is very clear that the
Rosen and Weissman tag team was conscientiously setting tripwires for
regime change.

Dreyfuss chronicles Weissman’s self-serving
evaluation of the Israel lobby along a left-right spectrum, with FBI
crackdowns on its neoconservative wing as driving the 2005 AIPAC espionage indictments. “So what does Weissman think was
going on? He believes that U.S. law enforcement officials, including
the FBI, and CIA officials were so angry over the role of neoconservatives
in backing the war in Iraq that they launched an investigation that
sought to link Wolfowitz, Feith, and other Jewish Pentagon officials
to Israeli intelligence, AIPAC, and a panoply of neocons at the American
Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and other think tanks in
Washington.”

Weissman’s self-portrayal is that of
a progressive hero reining in AIPAC as its liaison to Palestinian and
progressive groups while trundling around in a car with a “Free
Palestine” bumper sticker. But AIPAC’s skillful use of Weissman—who
readily admits that his greatest attachment to AIPAC was a string of generous
paychecks—to access progressive and Palestinian groups is really no
mystery. The lobby has always monitored
even its weakest opposition closely,
all the better to achieve an unopposed string of stunning successes for
Israel, at great cost to America.

But the only frame more absurd than
AIPAC’s claim to represent “the American Jewish community”
is analyzing the Israel lobby from a “right-left” perspective.
While AIPAC delights in creating an ongoing Democratic/Republican race
for candidates to trot out their “pro-Israel” credentials,
American taxpayers and voters are always the losers. Founder Isaiah
L. Kenen gloated about roping The Nation Magazine Associates into his earliest
Israel propaganda campaigns. There’s been even more noise of late
as various progressive pundits and policy posers rush to carve out new
positions in front of growing crowds of Americans outraged about the
Israel lobby—now that it’s been fully flushed out in the open by Mearsheimer
and Walt. But many progressive policy barkers continue to flog
their skeptical acolytes with expired brands of snake oil—that everything
of importance is really just a big
left-right battle for influence over Israel
and Mideast policy.

It’s not and never has been.

The overarching problem is the Israel
lobby’s subversion of American governance through electionfraud, the evasion of tax regulations and laws regulating foreign lobbies,
and the systematized, ongoing infiltration of operatives into key government posts to advance the interests of a
foreign state. Unfortunately for AIPAC, the Americans gathering
to challenge it cross party lines. Whether they wear American
flag pins on their suit lapels or Birkenstocks over wool socks is of
ever declining significance. Weissman and his fellow travelers
can try to outrun opponents by pulling an old horse’s head from right
to left. Weissman clearly wants to tell his side of the story.
But Weissman and Rosen will only reemerge as legitimate jockeys astride
America’s policy circuits when they again register as AIPAC’s agents of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

201203573219 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fsmith-grant%2F2011%2F06%2F14%2Faipac-pushes-hard-for-war-with-iran%2FAIPAC+Pushes+Hard+for+War+With+Iran+2011-06-15+06%3A00%3A56Grant+Smithhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012035732 to “AIPAC Pushes Hard for War With Iran”

Bunk .The War in Iraq was launched by AIPAC ? Really ! Policy on Iran driven by AIPAC ? Baloney !
Bush, {f—k the ] Baker/Chenney ,and OIL is what got us into Iraq . Irans desire to attain and threats to use nukes is what drives US policy towards Iran . Anyone who thinks the Iranian nucleasr program is for civil use is just plain STUPID .

of course. the iranian preference must be to endure frequent blackouts in tehran and skyrocketing energy costs in favour of building bombs which they will never be able to use. that makes perfect sense

[…] not, it won’t be for lack of trying. Their influential lobby in the US has been agitating for a US strike since the last year of the Bush presidency, when they almost succeeded in pulling it off: […]

[…] not, it won’t be for lack of trying. Their influential lobby in the US has been agitating for aUS strike since the last year of the Bush presidency, when they almost succeeded in pulling it off: […]

[…] Public Affairs Committee for trafficking in classified information on Iran — information AIPAC used to push for a war that Barrett’s article professes to oppose. As a patriotic former CIA officer wrote of the […]

[…] Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny and unprecedented resistance. AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask”Congress and the president […]

[…] Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny and unprecedented resistance.AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask”Congress and the president […]

[…] Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny and unprecedented resistance.AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask”Congress and the president […]

[…] Washington process conference next month is sketch heated inspection and unprecedented resistance. AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into quarrel with Iran. Soon it will “ask” Congress and a boss to […]

[…] Washington policy conference next month is drawing intense scrutiny and unprecedented resistance. AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask” Congress and the […]

[…] AIPAC has worked quietly for years to tripwire the United States into war with Iran. Soon it will “ask” Congress and the president to define “nuclear weapons capability” as the threshold for war, essentially demanding an immediate attack. Because Iran presents no military threat to the United States, many Americans wonder exactly where such costly and potentially disastrous policies are formulated. Recently declassified FBI files reveal how Israeli government officials first orchestrated public relations and policies through the U.S. lobby. Counter-espionage investigations of proto-AIPAC’s first coordinating meetings with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of Mossad provide a timely and useful framework for understanding how AIPAC continues to localize and market Israeli government policies in America. […]